What will it be?

"'When I looked at it on film, it was like, Wow ... that was a pretty nice play,' [Kirk] Morrison said. 'But it happened so fast. In the game it seemed like the ball was in the air forever. It was like it all happened in slow motion.'"

And this is why the defense is playing so well. This is the third year Rob Ryan has been building this defense, and it appears that the players have finally gotten it. Several have reported that when they are on the field, the game slows down for them. This is the dynamic conflagration of knowledge and athleticism.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the players have been introduced to their third offense in four years. Every member of the offensive line has been asked to change position. Some, like Gallery and Grove, have changed position three times. At the same time, the Raiders have also had numerous changes at Quarterback. We started in 2003 with Gannon, but finished with Mirer. We started 2004 with Gannon, and finished with Collins. We started 2005 with Collins and, unfortunately finished with Collins. We started 2006 with Brooks, and we're currently working on Walter (who never took an NFL snap before this season started).

Shell and Walsh (and the assistant coaches) are attempting to teach a style of blocking that has been largely discarded in the NFL in recent years. The style of blocking the Raiders are instilling is a straight up, confrontational style, as opposed to a misdirect/redirect method preferred by the West Coast offense. It seeks to blow a hole open for a running back rather than to trick the Defensive Lineman/Linebacker into vacating the hole. It seeks to create a wall around the Quarterback on passing plays until the whistle is blown, as opposed to keeping the Defensive Lineman/Linebacker off balance and directing him away from the Quarterback. The footwork between the two is vastly different. The difference between the two styles is on a par with the difference in style between Mohammad Ali (West Coast) and George Foreman (Gilman). But don't kid yourself into thinking that one is finesse and the other is brute strength. Both require solid foundational skills. They just use leverage for different ends. Perhaps the reason no teams commit fully to the Gilman now is because they anticipate the problems that Shell is going through, attempting to retrain linemen used to a not-so-different technique, but different enough.

One can expect that virtually every member of the Raiders' Offensive Line has practiced the modern style, if not his whole football career, the last many years. They can understand it intellectually, but in the heat of battle memory motors cause them to react as they have in past games. This is accentuated when defensive linemen and linebackers attack against the modern technique.

Most of the change is required to be performed by the tackles. This is why the center of the Raider line finally seems to be solidifying, while the tackles are still giving up sacks. The West Coast doesn't worry as much about the tackles. If the WC tackles can just push their assignments to the outside, the Quarterback gets the ball off so fast he won't have to worry about the Defensive Ends. In the Gilman, where the Quarterback must hang onto the ball a little longer, the tackles have to worry about the DEs, the OLBs, and the CBs. The tackles must learn to "pass off" assignments to an inside lineman, TE, or an RB, and move to another man. The inside linemen, the TEs, and the RBs must also learn to receive assignments passed off to them. This is very likely why Shell and Walsh are attempting to keep the offense as simple as possible ("vanilla" in the vernacular of some).

We haven't noticed so much that Ryan has been running a "vanilla" defense while linemen have been learning to play like linebackers, and linebackers have been learning to play like defensive backs. Ryan said just recently that he's now getting comfortable enough with the way the players are responding that he can begin to add some complexity, which will make the defense even more dynamic.

We are impatient with the offense, and rightfully so. We've waited three years for this team to win more than five games in a season. But learning something this different will take time. Perhaps more time than this season can provide. However, as the defense is playing so well, the Raiders understand that they can win more than they lose if they can just put up 17 points per game. This is both the goal and the dilemma for the Raiders. If they want to continue to rebuild the Gilman as the foundational Raider offense, they must continue what they've started. If they mix in a little West Coast with their Gilman in order to squeeze out an extra TD or two in the short run, how will it damage what they are trying to do in the long run. The fastest way to teach someone Spanish is to only allow them to speak Spanish, and the same is true with football fundamentals.

My hope is that there are so many years of football knowledge on this coaching staff that the coaches will put their heads together and come up with a creative solution that will satisfy both needs before the season is lost. What is needed here is a uniquely Raider solution. Undoubtedly, three years from now (the same amount of time taken by the defense) the game will slow down for this offense. But will Raider fans wait three years? I'm sure that Shell does not expect them to, so I expect to see the beginnings of a solution when the Raiders play the Seahawks. What will it be?